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Bookmark this pageLast Embrace (1979)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A delicious excursion into the world of Hitchcockian suspense. A taut, complex conspiracy thriller, it sees Scheider - a former 'agent' for an assassination firm - threatened by mental breakdown (guilt over his wife's death), by his former employers who find him dangerously superfluous, and by an obscure Hebraic society bent on revenge for some unknown reason. Scheider is admirably haunted as the justifiably paranoid gunman (who gets involved with a strange, duplicitous femme fatale), the whole thing is beautifully shot by Tak Fujimoto, and Miklós Rosza's stunning score augments Demme's careful control of atmosphere and set pieces. But what finally impresses is the way that the various references to Hitchcock and other classic thrillers are never used as an end in themselves; rather, they simply add resonance and depth to a film that works perfectly well in its own right.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Jonathan Demme
Producer: Michael Taylor, Dan Wigutow
Cast: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, John Glover, Sam Levene, Charles Napier, Christopher Walken, Jacqueline Brookes, Mandy Patinkin full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 101 mins
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